"I pick the building that I want to live in"

It had to happen eventually: David Byrne goes to Ikea:

My sister had the idea that we would take my parents to IKEA to look at possible replacements for their kitchen cabinets, counters, sinks and storage. I loved the idea of a trip to IKEA since I’d never been there ever. And as it was to be a look-see and not a buying trip, the pressure would be low. I was looking forward to the famous Swedish meatballs for lunch too.

IKEA is huge. We went up to the second floor where the shelves, sofas, tables and lamps are all arrayed into tasteful little room settings — rooms, but with mysterious tags hanging everywhere. Immediately I thought it was like entering a videogame world. Who lives here? What do they do? Why is that book on the table? Is that significant? Could it be some kind of clue to the occupant’s identity?

If I had the time, energy, filming rights and equipment, I could make a pretty darn good movie version of More Songs About Buildings and Food entirely within an Ikea. On the one hand, early Talking Heads songs like "Life During Wartime" and "No Compassion" are collected scraps of paranoid thought - protagonists are generally alone in a dangerous world, yet they defensively push away anyone who wants in. On the other hand, "Don't Worry About the Government" (quoted above) and "Found a Job," are comical in their sanguine tone. As if jacked up on happy pills in some sort of otherwise hopeless future, these songs reveal the voice of someone who has entirely given up all of his concerns about "what's real" for the manufactured comforts of real estate (as in "Don't Worry...") or TV (in "Found a Job").

Although I love Ikea for its wonderful meatballs and cheap stuff that holds up longer than one might imagine, it reeks of the controlled, contrived smiley face of the feelings-free dystopian future.

In most movies that take place in the future, one wonders what happens to antiques. These days, most folks have at least piece of furniture (if not more) that was made before they were born. They have crags, imperfections and marks from years of use, just like real people. Sometimes, old furniture has been painted and varnished so many times that it looks completely different from the way it looked when it was purchased. Just like the brainwashed people who populate these imagined futures, the aesthetic is similarly blank.

Ikea offers us a gigantic space with pleasing bright colors, clean lines and photos of happy customers, Scandinavian and otherwise. Ikea is what many Americans think of when the conversation turns to things Swedish. The bright basic colors replace the cold and darkness that blankets the country for much of the year.

Then again, I don't think the world needs a furniture and housewares store that reminds customers of the frustration of daily life and the inability of man to be simultaneously aware of the world around him and yet internally calm.